‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 2: What Does Helena Want?

This is Bill Simmons. I am thrilled to announce our newest YouTube channel.
It's called Ringer Movies.

If you're a fan of our movie coverage here at The Ringer, then you're in luck,

because every episode of The Rewatchables and The Big Picture, now on YouTube.

Like Bill said, Ringer Movies will feature full episodes of my show, The Big Picture, The Rewatchables,

as well as special live episodes, deep dives into movie history, and a bunch of other fun stuff

featuring other movie-loving Ringer personalities.

Search Ringer Movies on YouTube and experience the joy of Chris Ryan impersonating Wayne Jenkins on camera. This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot.
It's starting to look like spring and spring starts with savings at The Home Depot. There are savings for every project, whether you're starting with a clean slate with convenient cordless power like a new pressure washer or leaf blower, or starting to love the yard again with colorful flowers and fresh mulch, start your spring with early savings at the Home Depot.
Shop now at homedepot.com. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company, non-alcoholic brews.
Look, sometimes you want one. Sometimes you're like, I don't know if right now is the best time for one.
That's where Athletic Brewing Company comes in. They've hooked your boy up.
I am a huge fan of Upside Dawn, the golden. This March, don't miss the sports action with Athletic.
Head to athleticbrewing.com slash ringer to find it near you or shop online.

That's athleticbrewing.com slash r-i-n-g-e-r to find award-winning athletic N.A. brews near you.

Athletic Brewing Company, fit for all times, near beer.

They convinced you to stay.

Was a pineapple involved. Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast.
I'm Amanda Robinson. Joining me today is my favorite fetid, Moppet, Rob Mahoney.
Hey Rob, how are you doing? Joe, I'm doing great Thank you as always for having me

Thank you to the many people who contacted us

To say that we blew it

By not waiting to establish a Severance specific email address

As fetidmoppet at gmail.com

It was perhaps an oversight on our part

I'm not mad about where we ended up with

Pineapplebobbing at gmail.com

Which is the official Severance email address

Send us all of your theories and thoughts But to all all our fetid moppets out there, I appreciate them. Kai had messaged me.
He was like, I actually think we really crushed it with pineapple bobbing. And I was like, are pineapples heavily involved in episode two? And lo and behold, they are.
So I'm feeling good about pineapple bobbing. I think you knocked it out of the the park there.
So pineapple bobbing at gmail.com. Do you, by the way, Joe, have any revised thoughts on whether you could successfully bob a pineapple? I really feel like I ran this by a lot of people and they're all on team me that pineapple bobbing is something one could do.
What that tells me is you need to reconsider who you have in your life. These are people whose judgment you cannot trust.

Here's what I'll say.

We should heavily consider, and you can email us your requests at pineapplebobbing at gmail.com

and or press csheevy at spotify.com and or chamomile cookies do suck at gmail.com.

Canonically.

If you want us to end this season

with a pineapple bobbing competition,

we probably won't do it,

but we might.

So you can email us and ask for it.

You know, just think about it.

Listen, thrilled to be here.

Talk to you about Severance season two, episode two.

That is what has brought us here today.

Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig.

It's directed by Sam Donovan

and written by Mohamed El-Mastri.

Before we get into everything,

I do want to mention that you and I are

wrapping up our coverage of The Agency.

As promised.

Guys, as promised. We do not

leave abandoned things in the middle.

So we will be wrapping up The

Agency with sort of a little quick look

at the season and the finale and

a potential season two and all of that.

We'll be checking back in with The Pit. You guys are loving the pit according to the emails we're getting.
So we'll be back with some pit takes in the future. And I also want to shout out that Sean fantasy and I did an episode in this feed about the twin peaks pilot that you can check out just sort of in honor of David Lynch and his TV legacy.
So that's all that's happening on this feed.

We have a lot to talk about.

So much to talk about.

A lot of theories.

A lot of fun facts.

A lot happened in this episode.

Before we do, I want to share with our listeners

something that has delighted you, has delighted me,

and has delighted Kai.

We're going to talk about it now,

and then it may come up again later.

But I just want to let you all know that

as soon as we stopped recording last week,

Thank you. we're going to talk about it now and then it may come up again later but i just want to let you all know that as soon as we stopped recording last week we discovered an interview that billy bush did no no no i don't think there's a we involved joe you surfaced this interview i want to give you all appropriate credit okay i discovered an interview that because we were asking ourselves sort of have we seen christ Christopher Walken do Severance Season 2 promo? So I started Googling Christopher Walken interviews.
And lo and behold, he has. I found this Billy Bush interview where our nation's finest interviewer, Billy Bush, is talking to Christopher Walken.
and he wants to talk to him about his character Bert and John Totero's character Irving

Bert and Irving a romantic pairing

that happened in season one. Kai, will you play a little clip of how this went? Everybody's talking about Bervin.
Everybody's talking about Bervin. I have spent the last several hours just saying this aloud to myself in my apartment.

And I have to tell you, Joe,

what gets me is not

the sheer enthusiasm of Billy Bush

on the first delivery.

It's the second.

Everybody's talking about Birving.

Birving, the portmanteau romantic coupling name

of Bert and Irving

that nobody but Billy Bush has ever said.

Not a single person.

Nobody's talking about Birving, but this is our new favorite clip that we've ever seen in our lives. With love and apologies to consume the Rangoon, this is our new obsession.
So Kai put it on the soundboard and we will be liberally using it, I think, in our coverage of Severance Season 2. Well, I'm delighted to say after Episode 2, where we do get our first actual birthing of the season.
It's true. So, do yourself a solid if you haven't watched this interview.
I also want you to see the hand gestures that are involved. It's a lot.
It's a whole package. And also, Christopher Walken's reaction to this.
Please enjoy that. Would you call it a reaction? He sure is there on camera when it happens.
He is. His corporeal form is there.
Where is Christopher Walken? I could not tell you. Has Billy Bush seen a single second of severance? I can assure you he has not.
I promise you with my heart and soul, he has not. So anyway, please check that out.
We will beving a plenty uh this season on severance um and then i want to hit um some fun facts that we got sort of before we get into uh this episode specifically in reaction to episode one we got an email from a few people but our listener rachel wrote in to point out that uh in one, in the Lumen video, they said that they had operations in 205 countries? No, no, no. I think they said over 300.
Over 300. Yeah.
The United Nation only recognizes 195 countries, and there's only 205 sovereign countries in the world as of right now. So just to point out in this dystopian future where we've got like boxy 70s sedans in the parking lot, but also high-tech brain-splitting technology, there are more countries than we have on our planet.
Do you think that will come back into play or is that just like a fun little sci-fi twist to put in there? I think it will come back into play in that effect. You know, you said like in this sci-fi future, I think we're still trying to figure out where and when and how this story takes place to begin with.
We know that the actual Lumen HQ is in a place or at least a state in the United States that doesn't actually exist in our reality. And so are we in a parallel one?

Is this kind of like slightly off kilter?

Is it some like slate of hand otherwise in a very mystery laden show?

I don't know what's going on or when it's going on.

But I will say this episode overall kind of my ears perked up or my eyes opened wider, I guess, is more accurate about the level of analog technology, as you alluded to with the 70s cars, that's not just happening in the office, right? Like when Helena records her apology video, very like low tech, not exactly 4k glossy stuff that you would find from like a modern corporate setting. And so I really have no idea where or when we are.
And I love that it's hard to get a bearing on what even the physical reality of severance is. Retrofuturism, I believe, is the term.
And it's one of my favorite things that occurs. Our listener, Anna Grace M., I just put the last initial in there for a bit of whimsy, pointed out that, and we might have talked about us in season one but pointed out that the giant uh carving of kira that's in the lobby that we watch um dylan walk across uh in front of in in this episode i believe um looks nearly identical to a famous carving of lenin uh in the height of the ussr so you know the lenin-esque vibes are here and they're rancid.
And I just, Anna Grace included an image of it and it is like, it's a dead ringer. So that's just something, you know, to keep in our minds and our hearts as we think about Kier Egan.
Seems like a chill guy. Yeah.
Let him guide our hand on this pod today. It'll be fine.
Okay. I want to start by asking sort of your big picture, larger thoughts on the episode and this concept of doing an innie, uh, entirely innie episode for episode one, and then an outie episode for episode two.
This is something that Dan Erickson said, like, he thought about a lot in season one. He really wanted to do an innie-centric episode and an outie-centricentric episode.
How do you feel like it works as a back-to-back? How do you feel like it works in terms of kicking off a new season? I really liked it. I think overall, quality kind of two-piece episode here.
And in particular, the way that that structure lets the show let the air out of some of the big questions that we've been trying to figure out while also building up the tension in other ones. There's always a really deft balancing act

that's happening on severance with those things.

And you rarely get something answered

without creating other problems or other complications

or creating other questions and theories that result of it.

And I think structuring it as inies and outies

is a really sensible way to go about doing that

and to stave off some of the things

that people have been waiting three years for, right?

Like you may have heard that she is alive,

Thank you. is a really sensible way to go about doing that and to stave off some of the things that people have been waiting three years for.

You may have heard that she is alive.

Now we finally get the actual follow-up

on the seconds after that proclamation.

And I think how quickly, plausibly deniable it is

for someone who identified his dead wife's body

after a car wreck, and frankly just does not want to confront the idea that any version of her could still be alive i feel like rickon is like 100 baby devin's like 100 gemma or at least 85 yeah pretty high like that and then mark i actually i mean i think he's like 50 but doesn't want to even admit that he's that high on it, you know? You think he severed on the issue of whether Gemma is alive? Perhaps, mayhap. I also really like this episode, and I like the point you make about the fact that they set up a bunch of questions in episode one, and they answered them fairly quickly.
How much time has passed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How did they get everyone back in? Why do they want Mark back in there?

All that stuff is answered for us inside of this episode.

So we get that sort of feeling of having questions answered when really there are only questions

we've been asking for the last week.

The illusion of progress, Joe.

It's very important.

We need to see our little macro data percentage tick up ever so slightly. I've been worried.
I've been worried and sort of unduly why worry in advance. But like, you know, seeing the feverish speculation and theorizing and Reddit boarding and everything that's happening around this season already, I'm just like, is there any chance that severance ends in a way that satisfies people? Because I've never once seen a mystery box that is this chewed over stick the landing in the way that pleased people.

And it's not, I mean, they stick the landing in a way that pleases me often.

Like, I love the ending of Lost, but famously, a lot of people don't.

So, you know, I know that the folks making the show are aware of the history of mystery box showdom and sort of the legacy and the pitfalls.

And I think they are doing, cleverly doing things like this, like feeding us little answers while trying to keep some of the larger mysteries a mystery. or are they even keeping these larger mysteries and mysteries as we can talk about next because

I want to start with our latest theories on the point of severance slash the MDR.

We talked about this at the end of last week's episode,

this idea of the flash of Miss Casey that we see or Gemma that we see at the end of the episode.

We were talking about cloning or, you know, if she was brain dead sort of digitally resurrecting someone.

When we talk about Helena's creepy father, the fetid Muppet Sayer himself. Oh, my God.
And the thing he said last season about my revolving,

we were talking about the immortality of creepy rich people

and sort of how they figured out a way to forever preserve

or somehow resurrect themselves. I want to start, I want to ask you your current theories, if anything in this episode has sort of changed your thoughts or set you in a new direction.
But I want to start with another clip. I was listening to the official podcast, which is hosted by Ben Stiller and Adam Scott.
Sort of a mixed bad experience for me. They have a lot of workplace ads on this podcast that I have some questions about.
Wow. Slightly dystopian.
But they've had some sort of celebrity guests on in their rehash of season one, and that wasn't all that interesting to me. But they had Dan Erickson, who is the creator and writer on the show, on the episode two podcast.
And that was much more interesting to me. He talked a lot about Dylan and Devin, and I want to talk about them a bit later.
So I would say for me, anytime I see that Dan Erickson's going to be on, that's going to be sort of very interesting to me. But this is Ben Stiller and Adam Scott going through the new opening credits that we get inside of this episode.
And here's them talking about something we see at the very end of the opening credits. Kai, will you please play this clip? The ending of the opening credit sequence is super interesting, too.
Yes, when you see like a little baby Kier kind of crawling by. Yes.
Yeah. Interesting.
All right. See, I just thought it was a normal run-of-the-mill bearded baby.
Oh, you love a bearded baby, Rob. Could have been anybody.
Could have been anybody's bearded baby. Yeah, this is Kier.
This is a baby Keir. So, which I had noted, but now I would note with an underline and a bolding and an exclamation mark given the saucy little coy way that Adam Scott and Ben Stiller discussed it on the podcast.
Yes. So in terms of like, we are trying to clone or resurrect Keir Egan.
At least create some kind of new vessel for him. Yes.
But also with his consciousness. Yes.
You know, whether or not that's implanting his consciousness in, you know, Helena's father or in Helena herself or something like that. It's more of a like the island scenario.
You know, we're just harvesting here.

We're harvesting.

And is then Gemma, who is AKA Cold Harbor.

And we find out inside of this episode

when they say we need Mark to come back down

into the severed floor to finish Cold Harbor.

That's what they say. They need Mark mark specifically they don't give a shit really about dylan no they do not irving um they need mark to finish cold harbor and cold harbor is the you know code name we saw on the gemma screen at the end of episode one.
So this is something we talked about last week, this idea that like Mark specifically,

because know, code name we saw on the Gemma screen at the end of episode one. So this is something we talked about last week, this idea that like Mark specifically,

because he knows Gemma better than anyone else, if they are trying to recreate the personality of someone who has passed, who better to do it through the obscure process of macro data

refinement, which I do not understand.

It's mysterious and important, though.

Than her grieving husband.

Yeah.

What are all the pieces doing inside of your brain right now?

I mean, a lot.

I think clearly, as you say, we have final official confirmation out of the characters' mouths that Mark specifically is important in exactly the way you described.

That's good clarity to have.

And I think we see that displayed in the lengths that the company is willing to go to try to bring him back. 20% raise? I mean, look, it's not nothing.
Wellness checks. We'll take it.
A pineapple basket. A juicy pineapple.
Look like maybe some passion. Maybe, I couldn't get a glimpse of all the fruit.
You think there's a mango in there? I do. I hope it was a champagne

mango. Let's pull out all the stops if

we're going to do this thing, right? What's a champagne mango?

Oh, we'll get you

caught up, Joe. The world

of mango is wide and luxurious.

I don't know anything about

special mangoes. Absolutely delightful

fruit.

Yeah, so it's nice to have that.

I am worried about what that could mean overall in terms of the plot, but I am very curious as to what the process entails of getting these bodies ready to be cloned, recreated, consciousnesses reconstructed, how that process of, say, Gemma dying in a car crash or coming near enough to death, maybe she wasn't fully brain dead or whatever it happened that would allow her to participate in this process in such a one-sided way as an any only. How does that relate to James Egan and his seeming pursuit of revolving, his attempt at revolving in the future, which we can assume to be some means of prolonging his life or extending his life, whether through another body of his, a body of Helena's, whatever it ends up being.
Those are two very distinct situations. And I'm trying to figure out how, why the recreation of consciousness would be instructive or helpful in the case of basically transporting a consciousness from one body to the other, perhaps.
But maybe that's the wrong way to think about it. If Gemma's a case study, if the ultimate goal is resurrect or reconstruct Kir Egan, and Gemma is a case study...
Wait, do you think the goal is to resurrect Kir Egan or to prolong current CEO Jane Egan's life? I think it's to resurrectier Egan. But all of them.
I think it's to make the Egan's immortal. Yes.
So, you know, Jame Egan, who is quite elderly, you know, like, give him a fresh new young body if you want. That's a sort of, like, get out.
You want hot Jame Egan. Get out scenario sort of thing, right? And then bring back someone you've lost, that's a sort of like get hot jamie again get out scenario sort of thing right and then uh bring back someone you've lost that's a sort of west world uh experience this idea that gemma's body uh when devon and mark are in the diner and they're talking and he is having a negative reaction to devon saying like but if we could just be sure and he And he's like, fuck you.
That's my wife. It's not, it's not your wife.
Like back off. And he says the way that he phrases it, it's slightly ambiguous, but he's talking about like, Hey, if Rick and died and you had to like, and his body was burned, I would feel like maybe bad for you.
But I personally would not be affected if Rick and died took to quote Mark. The way he says body burned, the question is, when he ID'd the body, was that a burned body?

And in that case, if it was a heavily burned body, was that a body swap? Was it a different body?

And the other question I have that I've been thinking about in terms of like, how would they know to sort of pick Gemma,

someone who was maybe borderline brain dead

or something like that, as a subject,

and Mark, be able to recruit Mark as the refiner,

that they need two things.

They need someone who's been lost,

but is still maybe somehow recoverable,

and the person who lost them being willing to come down

to the severance floor.

It doesn't seem, you know, given what Milchik says in this episode, and we'll get into that about, and the person who lost them being willing to come down to the severance floor.

It doesn't seem, you know, given what Milchik says in this episode, and we'll get into that about what Mark described, how Mark described his grief. He's ripe for recruitment into severance, right? Yes.
Inside of his grief. But I've been thinking about this thing that we learned in season one which is that um Dr.
Agabi who uh is the person who uh reintegrates Petey uh in season one she worked at the same university as Mark and Gemma like wasn't necessarily like best friends with them but like had that pre-severance connective tissue to them not that this is is a huge town necessarily, but like that's of note. Like is she, was she tracking this? Was she saying like, oh, hey, this thing happened to, you know, someone who works at my university.
Maybe we should go after the husband or something like that, you know? Well, I mean, to drill down on it too, I think the timing of all that could suggest something even more nefarious, which is that Gemma and Mark were targeted as candidates. Gemma was killed or at least taken away for the purposes of creating the severed link.
And then Mark was solely like watched and guided and influenced and courted into becoming a severed employee. Because even if, say hypothetically, Gemma dies in a car crash or doesn't die in a car crash.
Lumen somehow swoops in and grabs this random woman's body with at that point, no real reason to think that Mark would want to sever himself to then work on the floor to then participate in Cold Harbor. Like there's only almost like too many things that would need to happen.
Too many dominoes to think that it would be that accidental path and not Lumen set up Gemma to either die or disappear. You make a great point.
Another thing I want to bring up, we get a close up on the license plate on Milchik's bike, which is similar to the license plate on the back of Mark's car. Yeah.
Also, not surprising that Milchik is fully leathered up. Leather daddy.
Leather daddy Milchik. Some character beats just track.
I gotta say, so his leather looks like quite like it's like kind of squeaky and like shiny and new. Oh.
I want to shout out Irving's leather jacket, which seems much more like I've actually worn this jacket. That might be his dad's jacket.
That's a vintage It is a great. Genuine article.
but the license plate says remedium home to bus, which is Latin for cure for men. So cure for men as a sort of cure slogan is the cure for men.
Like the cure for death, like we've cured mortality, the idea of mortality? Or is it closer to the fact that like they got their start, Lumen got their start doing like solves, medicate solves and stuff like that. So we cure men sort of more literally.
Just something to track. I think it's other way.
I think some ominous Latin. Isn't it always? And all of this is much more compelling to me than a bunch of our listeners very sweetly wrote in after my completely incoherent Civil War ramblings during last episode, where I mentioned that the company was founded the same year that the Civil War ended.
We have seen Keurigian in sort of like Civil War regalia in that creepy painting that we saw in last week's episode. And so a few of our listeners wrote in with this idea of like, what if the idea of severance is an idea of sort of tech enhanced new slavery? Like slavery is ended by the Civil War, but we can newly enslave people with this tech.
And the kernel of the idea comes from a, he's not wearing blues, he's wearing grays, Keir Egan, after the Civil War. So any thoughts on that? I hope it doesn't get that explicit.
I have some apprehensions about that. I think what Severance does very well overall, regardless of how explicit that gets, is the subtler ways that people are sort of nudged into control.
Sometimes literally all it takes is a pineapple to bring somebody back to a job they don't want to be doing. And so slavery, overtly capital S slavery, is not something I necessarily want Severance diving into, but the ideas of the ways in which we are controlled and manipulated to work at the expense of our own lives and for the causes of other, in this case, very rich people who seemingly just want to be immortal, that I can get behind.
I agree. I would prefer to keep it metaphorical than literal, but I thought the emails we got were really thoughtful and I appreciate everyone who wrote them.

Very much so. As we think about the idea of bringing Gemma back from the dead some way or another, or dead question mark one way or another, I want to zero in on this quote from Milchik as he's trying to give in Mark to, he's trying to manipulate Mark back into the severance floor, right? This is a good sell.
And reminding him of the grief that he found himself in, in a very Miss Casey-esque saying like, your innie is brave, your innie has found love, your innie... Has very stylish shoes.
Yeah, your innie is brave. Your innie is, has found love.
Your innie has very stylish shoes. Yeah.
Your innie would be, you would be killing your innie. If you never go back in, he did this brave thing and you would be snuffing out his life if you don't go back in.
And then he says the solace that he, the innie has found down there will make its way back to you. It just takes time.
I hope you'll give us that time, Mr. Scout.
So a couple of possibilities here. One is that more sort of any severance as therapy.
Like if your innie is able to find peace and happiness and love, that healing will sort of ooze its way into your larger brain space. As you can tell, I have not been studying any more neuroscience since last week.
You sound very precise to me, Joe. You could have fooled me.
Does therapy ooze? Okay. That your healed innie will sort of heal your outie eventually sort of thing.
Innie piece, as I like to think of it. I love it.
Worky piece. But then, or is it more literal?

We, that- heal your outie eventually sort of thing. Any piece, as I like to think of it.
Worky piece. But then, or is it more literal, the solace that he has found down there will make his way back to you.
It just takes time. I hope you'll give us that time, Mr.
Scout. We will return your dead wife to you.
Do you have any thoughts or feelings about that as a possibility? I see it a lot more as spin and as control. I mean, obviously, yes.
And these first two episodes are just laden with the PR push at Lumen internally and externally, right? They're trying to convince Mark. They're trying to convince the returned macrodats of all the good they've supposedly done in the world by busting out the first time.
And there was something in this episode about hearing Helena in the outside world just use the words innies and outies that really crystallized like how that cutesy language itself is such a PR stunt and is a way to like soften the edges of something that's really gross and fucked up. Like we've heard Milchik use that plenty of times.
We've heard everyone within the world of The Office refer to Indies and Audies. But there's something about like craven CEO type overlords referring to it in those terms that just feels a little bit grosser.
And that feels, you know, everything about the cover story that she creates about why she was on stage, you know, spilling her guts about the lives of the inner lives of Indies, I guess. There's so much that needs, so much damage that needs to be controlled as Cobell lays out very articulately in this episode.
And I feel like Milchik, as much as anybody, he is on that sort of mission. He is the emissary of controlling the narrative and the mission, including whatever it takes, whatever you have to tell Mark to get back in the office is what he has to do.
Whatever kind of mango you need to procure, you will find it. And let me tell you, those things are not cheap.
They're not cheap. I'm like going to go on the hunt for a champagne mango now.
I don't know that I've ever had one and now it's all I want, even though I don't know what it is. Okay.
Let's talk about Helena. You talked about Helena and her cover story.
I want to shout out, I don't know that I agree with this theory, but we did get an email from a listener who just goes by Albinoverse. So shout out the Albinoverse.
Rob and I, as extremely white people can relate. But like the, this person underlined a couple lines from the season one finale that I think, so Helena's cover story is that she had too much to drink combined with a non-lumen medication got turned up on non-lumen medications i don't know who this video is for it can't be for wide release i think it has to just be for the board because if it's for wide release then you know i feel like dylan and ir, like, I don't think Dylan and Irving and whatever

should have to see this, right? So who is the video for, do you think?

Doesn't, I would think the board would know what happened. I would think the board knows about

opera, like the overtime protocol.

Investors then, whoever's at the party. It's not just the board at the party, right? Like

the senators.

I think for the friends and allies. Yes.
It's for them, but not necessarily internal communication. But these are the lines that this listener underlined in the season one finale.
When she's about to go on stage, Natalie, the completely creepy PR person... I love Natalie, I gotta say.
Great character. ...saying that Helena can only have one drink before going on stage.
I'm gonna quote the email then to explain it a way why she helena is acting differently to her dad she says something to the effect of she's not feeling well her dad doesn't react to her as if she's sick he he reacts as if it's something they've dealt with before will you be all right for the speech yes this all implies to me that helena is some kind of alcoholic i'm not sure I agree with this Albanaverse, I got to say.

And I also think that an important context for that bathroom scene between Helena and her father is that she sort of reaches for the bruises on her neck. This idea of like, he says, I hate what your Annie did to you, right? So this idea that like, tried to hang herself.
Like, that's what happens. So that's like something she's recovering from.
but I did think it was interesting that we got that email before we got this video

of Helena saying like that's what happens so that's like something she's recovering from um but i did think it was interesting that we got that email before we got this video of helena saying i had too much to drink combined with non-lumine medication so just as perhaps we should be tracking mark scout's uh alcohol consumption why not why not keep a weather eye on helena's alcohol consumption yes and i think i the presence, too, of Drummond, who's the sort of big, burly, Lumen employee of mysterious origin and purpose lurking on the edges of the frame of this episode are kind of illuminating in that way. Like a handler.
Yeah, the first couple of times you see him, it feels like, okay, maybe he's Lumen's security, maybe he's Helena's personal security, or like, you know,

like Bagman kind of

situation. But

after watching this episode and seeing

what he engages in, and in particular the way

he speaks up about what he

considers to be a problem or not,

makes it feel much more like he is there to control

her, or to keep her in line, or

to watch her, make sure she's walking some

very narrow path.

I think their power dynamic is

murky at best, and I think that that is worth watching also worth watching uh his frolic tattoo on his hands i didn't even i didn't even catch it it says like when he's in the diner he's dropping on devon and um mark you see his hand holding a coffee cup and it says frolic sort of in the space between his thumb and his forefinger. And I'm curious if other Lumen employees have other of these four temperaments that tattooed on them.
On the nature of Hallie versus Helena, which we will talk about right now, but our listener Olive wrote in, which I think a really good point, this idea of the innie personality versus the outie personality, learning much more about Helena as we do in this episode, getting to spend more time with her as we do in this episode, and Britt Lauer just being incredible. Fucking crushing it.
So good. but is actually, hers is my favorite innie outies, but like Adam Scott did a great job.
Yeah. Turturro's a legend, obviously.
But she has kind of the most fun contrast in a lot of ways. I think so.
Again, there's a wide range with Mark and with what Adam Scott's delivering, but I think this one, to your point, is more fun and engaging and is still so mysterious on the outside that we're trying to figure out what she's up to and what's going on in her head. The thing that our listener, Olive, wrote in to say, maybe Heli's sense of entitlement, which manifests in evil capitalism, in her Audi is what makes her any such a radicalizing force.
So we're born with slash develop certain characteristics, but how they manifest depend on the world you live in and your position in it. So this idea, end quote from Olive, so this idea that Helena has always had things her way is the one who sort of like most chafes against.
And that's obviously not true. She is controlled by her father, by these other things or whatever.
But like- I think we have more reason to think than ever that maybe she doesn't want to be part of any of this at all. A hundred percent.
A hundred percent. I think it's, so let's talk about the rewatch of The Kiss, shall we? Just on loop.
Just being a little freak. What are the angles? What angles can I look at? Can I zoom in? Can I slow-mo? What do we got? Enhance that.
Enhance that. Okay.
So the picture that that paints for us is if we go back to episode one and think about our personal theory that we are watching Helena and not Heli.

Yeah.

Which is not confirmed necessarily by this episode.

People seem to really enjoy debating this.

It is not confirmed necessarily by this episode, but we should mention that when everyone goes down in the elevator, Helena's journey down at the end of the episode, you know, Irving goes back to work, Dylan goes back to work. Her elevator doesn't ding the way that theirs does.
And the ding has been sort of our auditory cue for severance. So that's just.
I'm not saying it is 100% confirmation,

but it is a thing that happens in this episode.

But let's play this out.

Let's say that Helena is someone

who not only needs to go down

because they need to pretend that Heli is there

so that Mark will clear the Cold Harbor case,

which is something that they need

for their corporate progress

into their evil deeds.

Great.

But also-

I mean, end of quarters coming up, Joe.

We got to hit those marks. But also, is Helena someone who has been affection and touch starved in her life so that when we track her down, when we rewatch episode one and watch her reaction to Mark hugging her and how uncomfortable she looks, is that discomfort not just, I'm Helena, not Heli, and I feel weird about this, but also I've not been embraced this warmly in my life and I am covetous of this thing that my innie got to experience.
Is that your reading of a possible reading of what we're watching here? Yes, that's where I am right now, is that yes, the version we're seeing on the severed floor is Helena undercover. The reason she is undercover though, I think to me was clarified somewhat by this episode, but maybe I've been led astray.
I'm operating under the assumption that she has been ordered to go back to the severed floor as severed helly. Be helly as normal, return to exactly what you were doing, severed in and out.
And she has taken it upon herself as the affection deprived person that you describe, who wants a little bit of that sweet, sweet Mark action to just go back and assume helly spot. And that's a great place to be because not only are we getting that dual debate, but then you get this situation with Mark S where not only is he going from unknowingly interacting with a ghost clone of his maybe dead wife, but now he is unknowingly interacting with an outie imposter of his work crush.
This is juicy stuff. This is really good dramatic tension.
Yeah. Someone was objecting to my use of love quadrangle.
They're like, you're not accounting for all the members. And I'm like, yeah, we're in a love polycule here, I think, all centered around some version of Mark.
But what that turns this into, I think more interestingly, is not, is that Helly?

Which is sort of the surface Reddit detective question you can ask yourself.

But like, why is Helly there? And to your point, I do think it's a corporate mandate, but why is Helena?

What is her ultimate agenda? Is it to serve the corporation or is it to go on this sort of emotional awakening perhaps? And like, is it a recon? One comment I saw on Reddit that I loved, I'm so sorry. I didn't write the user's name down was like, not Helena going to steal a Helly's man.
Straight up though. That is what what's happening when she says to Mark in episode one we don't owe our Annie's fucking anything including staying away from their man like I don't know and like I think a question people were asking after episode one is like if that's Helena why does she seem so sort of like warm to or slightly like flirtatious with Mark or curious about Gemma or all this other stuff.
And I think this episode answers that. Like she's curious.
She might want to smooch him. Like she's like, are we smooching right away? Do we need to build back up to that? What's the vibe here? What are we doing? I'm willing to do it.
And we should say like flirtatious and curious in a very distinctly different way from Helly. The questions that she's asking, the framing, we talked about the body language and the hug last week, but the way she talks and the thoughts she has and the ideas that she wants to know more information about, that's not the way Helly communicates.
I don't know if we're going to get a happy ending for anyone here. But I do see a potential future where mark has to choose

between a sort of version of jemma a version of miss casey which is trying to hold on to the past Yeah.

Even if she's not like a complete real whole version, a shadow version of his dead wife or a future with, you know, this woman that he's met and this idea of like, I don't know. I think, I think fundamentally what severance has on his mind, which most of these kinds of shows have on their mind, is what does it mean to be a human? What does mortality mean? Things matter because they end.

Inside of this episode, Mark, in a really joking, once again, sibling shorthand that I love, when Devin's like, what's my name? And he says, Persephone. It seems like a fun inside sibling joke.

But we have to go to Greek mythology corner, do we not?

We certainly do.

Persephone, queen of the dead, obviously.

And Persephone, a figure in the story of Orbeus and Eurydice,

which was, if people have not seen Hadestown

or read Orpheus and Eurydice recently,

this is the story of Orpheus whose wife Eurydice dies. She goes in the underground.
He is so grief-stricken that he follows her down into the underground and makes a deal with Hades, king of the dead, and his lovely wife Persephone. That he can have his wife back if he walks out of the underworld and doesn't look back to make sure that she's following him.
And he can't do it. And he looks back because he grows uncertain and he loses her and she goes back down to the world.
And then things do not go well for Orpheus after that. But, you know, this is certainly something that's been on people's mind because the severance floor is so clearly a sort of like hell underground kind of idea.
And certainly the image of Miss Casey at the end of season one down that hallway with the elevator going further down behind her is like very Eurydice-y coded. Is this interesting to you as a central idea of the show of this idea of like, I don't know, love, connection, mortality? Are you interested in human emotion, Rob? How do you feel? You know what? It turns out that I am.
Okay. And in particular, not just the Persephone element of this, and I agree with you on all of the, like the imagery you're describing, the themes that the show has set up, all of that is there.
There is also in both of those cases, but I would say, especially Miss Casey and Gemma, a real like ship of Theseus thing happening here. If you can recreate a loved one in the aggregate and recreate their consciousness and put it in a new body, is that still the person you love? And on the other side of that, if you fell in love with Helly R.
in the first place, but she is swapped out and you kind of continue to fall in love with someone who is not exactly her, but kind of like her, what level of artifice is real? What level of artifice is acceptable? And Theseus is also kind of Persephone adjacent, mythologically speaking. So I think there's ways in which all of this stuff marries together really nicely.
And I agree with you that it feels like we have to be headed in that way. I don't know if it's going to be as literal as he has to choose between the Innie or the Audi or different spaces in different worlds.
But these two women in his life clearly represent different things and different constructions and different versions of himself. And I have no idea what he'll pick, but I love that setup.
I have a hope for reintegration as a concept seeded in season one. Maybe that's too

hopeful that both Mark and the Helly Helena consciousness can reintegrate and then we can

just all live happily ever after. But it is worth noting in our sort of, and it's just asking for it over analysis of the new opening credits, that there is an image of Ellie and Gemma sort of like flashing back and forth down that hallway.
So that is definitely an important. Other things that were in that opening credits, not just the cure baby, but lots of weird babies.
In addition to Mark turning into a goat, in a way that makes... I mean, it feels like we're pointing to the goats are sort of the animal test subjects, perhaps, of some of whatever cloning stuff is happening.
And in effect, the humans have now replaced them in the trials, and we've moved on. We've moved on.
I'm still trying to figure out what to make of the balloon head stuff it was obviously a big part of the first episode and the imagery of that is really strong in the opening credits do you have any do you have any ideas about that ben stiller said in the official podcast that there's a because there's a balloon in the opening credits for season one that was something that the designer of the opening credits of season one just came up with just like a random image that he came up with and so he said the balloons in episode one were inspired by the opening credits of season one and so then the opening credits of season two are in turn inspired so it's just a feedback wow seemingly of the artists of the opening credits but the balloon has eaten its own string but yeah an orophores of balloons but Ben Stiller has said that there are a lot of things from future episodes of season two that are in these opening credits. So the more we watch, the more we'll understand the opening credits.
So maybe we'll just check back in every week and sort of see if we've got more illumination there. Subject to credit approval, variable APRs for AppleCard range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on credit worthiness.
Rates as of January 1st, 2025. AppleCard issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City branch.
Terms and more at AppleCard.com. This episode is brought to you by Max.
The award winning series. Hacks returns this April.

The new season follows Deborah Vance,

making a move from her Vegas residency to Hollywood showbiz tensions rise as

Deborah and Ava try to get their late night show off the ground and make

history while doing it.

Starring Jean smart and Hannah Einbinder hack season four is streaming

Thursday,

April 10th exclusively on max. Don't forget to check out the official Hacks podcast on Spotify.
This episode is brought to you by Max. The Emmy Award-winning series Hacks returns this April.
The new season follows Debra Vance making a move from her Vegas residency to Hollywood showbiz. Tensions rise as Debra and Ava try to get their late night show off the ground and make history while doing it.
Starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder. Hacks season four is streaming Thursday, April 10th, exclusively on Macs.
And don't forget to check out the official Hacks podcast on Spotify. Okay, so that is what is going on with Helena.
Kai, will you play our friend Billy Bush, please? Everybody's talking about Birving. Everybody's talking about Birving.
Everybody, Joe. Everybody's talking about Birving.
While we're talking reintegration, though, I do feel like Irving could be a natural candidate for reintegration at some point. Again, someone who has a fundamental tension in his character between an Audi who is investigating things going on at Lumen, having clandestine payphone calls, and also an innie who is in love with Bert, and an outside world Bert who is at least curious about what the fuck is going on with this guy who showed up at his house.
Okay, so here's my question. I had one interpretation of the phone message that we hear from Irving here.
And then no one else in the world seems to have that same interpretation. So I'm probably wrong.
Okay. So this is what Irving says into the payphone.
Okay. You're not picking up.
I get it. I want you to know my innie got the message.
Okay, so Rob Mahoney. Yes.
Who do you think Irving is calling? Why wouldn't that person want to pick up? And what do we think the message was that innie Irving received? I mean, the bird possibility is clearly there as far as like not being responded to or answered. I think that is the faint.
That is the surface level. Like the last thing you saw, everything that we've really heard about with Irving this season has been Burt related.
Yeah. I think this is probably more in conjunction with someone he was working with, with whatever project he has vis-a-vis Lumen.
So maybe Raghavi. Could be Raghavi.
Could be a journalist. Could be a character we haven't met yet.

I don't exactly know.

This season, I do feel this season,

even though we haven't gotten a huge influx of new characters,

just subtle ways where the show is kind of building its world out a little bit

and reintroducing some new ideas.

And even just showing us the bizarro macro data refinement team.

Things like that make it feel like,

okay, there's some people who, if they're not going to be introduced to the story, at least there's some kind of tentacles reaching outward. Mark W.
broke his lease in Grand Rapids to come here. Straight up.
How the fuck living, you know? Very rude. They're responsible for that, I think, as far as I'm concerned.
Okay, so could Irving be calling like a ragabi figure or a journalist or someone

else that he was working with perhaps,

but I guess what doesn't sit right with me with that is like,

you're not picking up.

I get it.

And sure that could be information we learn later,

but like,

okay,

you're not picking up.

I get it.

I guess I can't shake the idea that like bird and Irving know each other outside and in. And why haven't they shown us what happened in the immediate aftermath of, because when Irving was woken up, he was banging on Bert's door.
Yep. And we didn't get to see what happened after that.
We see what happens with Dylan in the immediate aftermath. We see what happened with Mark in the immediate aftermath.
We see what happened with Heli in the immediate aftermath, Helena in the immediate aftermath. We don't see what happened with Irving and Burt on the doorstep.
So when he's in the elevator and reawakened on the severed floor, he is banging on the elevator door, much like he was banging on Burt's door. And I think we're led to believe, and we talked about this some last week, that that's picking up the second it left off where we saw him in the show.
But I'm with you that I think there could be a gap of time there where Bert opens the door and they have some length of conversation and Bert shuts the door. And this is him trying to get Bert to open up again to continue the conversation or maybe he said he doesn't want to see him again.
Or as you say, maybe they have some kind of history in the outside world. Well, I guess this is, I don't know.
This is like, maybe it's so hard to like talk about theories on this show when I have to talk about like different versions of character. But if like Audi Bert knows Audi Irving Somehow.
This idea of like,

we'll meet again,

we'll meet again,

we'll meet again.

Like they already know each other

on the outside.

And so they felt this connection

on the inside

because they already knew each other

on the outside.

Yeah.

Sort of a thought I had,

even though we know that Bert is married

and we saw John Noble play his husband

in season one and stuff like that.

But I think that like,

if Bert opens the door

and it's outie Irving and it's

outie Bert and they've agreed not to talk to each other and he's like, what the fuck are you doing here on my doorstep? We said we wouldn't see each other anymore. And so Irving calls him and says, okay, you're not picking up.
I get it. Why you wouldn't answer my phone calls, something like that.
I don't think that any Irving had any more time with Bert, but I'm wondering if Audi Irving and Audi Bert had a conversation or certainly something happened that at least piqued Bert's interest because he has followed Irving and is watching in here. Yes.
So just to recap, Birving, everybody's talking about.

At least we are.

Everybody's talking

about Birving here.

Here's my question about that.

If Audi Irving

and Audi Burt

were able to have

some communication

or conversation

after the overtime,

is it overtime protocol?

I keep saying it.

Contingency?

I think it might be contingency.

The OTC,

the overtime contingency was turned off. It made me think the license contingency from I think it might be contingency.
The OTC, the overtime contingency, was

turned off. It made me think the Lacey contingency from

Jurassic Park. Okay, go ahead.

After it was turned off,

if they did have a window of time

there, then why

would...

I'm trying to connect that to the elevator

and any Irving being woken up, but I guess

regardless, he was still kind of shut down when

he was banging on the door, one way or the other.

So yeah, those things can coexist.

Okay. On the message

Thank you. and any Irving being woken up.
But I guess regardless, he was still kind of shut down when he was banging on the door one way or the other. So yeah, those things can coexist.
Okay. On the message front, let's put the Burt theory aside because I'm unable to make a very strong case there.
It's just like a feeling I have. And especially because like, what information does Irving have to work off of? This map that says like Burt on it and stuff like that.
Like Irving is like, what was my innie up to? All this sort of stuff like that. In terms of the message, I think a strong theory on that front is that the paintings that he was constantly making in his house was this idea of if I constantly expose myself to this image, I can bleed that image in through to my innie.
And then my innie will go investigate this elevator, the same elevator we saw Miss Casey go down in season one. So the paint oozing over the cubicle is part of this painting message sort of seeping through the severance process.
This idea that like, which to me points to, does that make sense? Which to me points to perhaps Irving working in cahoots with Dr. Ragabi, who's like, if you expose yourself enough to a certain image in your waking life, your sleepingnie self will be able to see it.
And that's a way without written communication, because they can't do it, you can communicate something to your innie. You can do it through this visual cue or something like that.
So I think that was the attempt. Yeah.
But then what happened is that Annie Irving woke up and saw all the paintings and is like, what the fuck is this dark, mysterious hallway I have painted 500 times? Correct. And then was returned.
And so we saw that in the first episode of him having an awareness of this hallway and this elevator exist. I don't know what they are or how to get there, but they're out there.
Yeah. All right.
Anything else you want to say about Birving before everybody stops talking about Birving until next week? I think it's time for everyone to stop talking about it for once. Okay, just shut up about Burbing for once.
Let's go to the Great Doors, Dylan and the Door Factory interview. Some of the best shit that's ever happened in my entire life.
Yep. I could not possibly take you through all of the best parts of this scene because almost every line is the best part of the scene.

But I will say going back through,

and it's hard to pick.

It really is.

I have to say, may I ask about benefits?

And there's a coffee maker and he gestures to the coffee maker on his desk.

That one got me the most on rewatch.

Did you have a favorite moment of this interview?

I think it was

when he's talking about

how Lumen makes their own doors in-house

and it's fucking hubris.

That one jumps out.

But yeah,

this scene really did have it all.

You know,

like our first real time

with Dylan's Audi,

which was as delightful as I expected

and could have hoped it would be.

We've got the doppelganger interview.

We've got the door puns.

We even have, frankly,

good podcasting banter, Joe, because if you were a kind of door, what kind of door would you be? Do you have an answer for this? I have one. What's your answer? I would say definitely for me, saloon door.
You know, I don't want something too restrictive. I want something flexible.
I want something unflappable. I want something that when it opens up with force You're saying shit is going down That's the level of announcement that I want in my life That's such a good answer Well I had the benefit of creating the question I'm putting you on the spot Pocket door was a great answer And the exploration of why a pocket door Was also very good A very like a severance sort of answer.
I might go with a French door. Okay.
Because it's, even when you go through it, you're still inside. That sounds nice to me.
But also like, it's just, it's a, it's a beautiful accent in your home. You can see through it.
It's just like, yeah, transparency, indoor kit energy. All of this is available to you if you're a French door.
I think that's a beautiful and noble insight, Joe. I appreciate that you want to be a French door.
I really like your saloon door answer, though. Do you want to carry away in on the paint question? I do not.
Are you a semi-glass person? I'm flexible. I feel like, frankly, if it's a saloon door, it's very rarely actually painted.
Oh, yeah. No.
That's a raw wood. You want that real wood grain vibe.
Maybe at best, like some kind of red polish finish. A varnish of some sort.
A little bit of a varnish, but let's not get crazy with it. Okay.
Something that Dan Erickson... So, two things.
Dan Erickson worked in the door factory when he came up with the idea for so that's a fun fact. But secondly, the thing that he talked the most about on the official podcast that that most sort of hadn't occurred to me is he and Adam talked a lot about this idea that Dylan on the outside, Audi Dylan, is at a loss for his own identity is really in search for his own identity.
And any Dylan is so sure of who he is and Audi Dylan, despite the available sort of identity of dad or husband, um, is still sort of flailing and floundering. A lot of people noticed that he asked immediately

sort of about health benefits.

So there's this question of, is his wife ill?

Or is one of his children ill?

And that's why he has to be on a healthcare plan.

Perhaps that's the case.

But this idea of Dylan as someone who is insecure

and floundering versus Dylan who is full of bravado on the inside. I'm not sure that's quite what leapt out to me inside of this sequence, but I'm willing to engage with that as a dichotomy to watch in the future.
Any thoughts on that? I think there's the seeds of it. And frankly, an idea to explore there as far as like, I mean, look, who among us could possibly relate to this idea, Joe? But the idea that your work and your identity are tethered so strongly together and who you are is what you do or what you produce.
We would never fall into such traps, but other people might, Dylan included. And you can tell, even though, honestly, he doesn't get a lot to explore as far as his internality, as far as what he feels or or thinks.
Like these two Dylans might have that part in common,

but you do get the sense that he doesn't know what to do

with losing his job.

It's like, what do I tell my wife?

Like, what do I tell my wife and kids after this happens?

And then when he starts going through the interview process

and they go through his resume,

it's like a lot of short-term jobs

that have clearly turned over very quickly.

And someone who is in search of something about themselves. A kickball enthusiast.
At least participant. He didn't seem that enthusiastic.
And then it's always good, I think, to check in as we have with Rick and his friends or the student protesters or Petey's daughter, the people who think the act of severance is unnatural and disgusting and all this sort of thing. It's good to be reminded of that.
It doesn't feel legal to discriminate on the base of severance, but I'm not a Supreme Court justice. You know what? Okay? It's 2025.
I'm not here to speak on what is legal and what is not anymore. Great point, Rob.
Okay, let new favorite character which is detective devon um devon as we hoped is like on the case um i want to shout out something real quickly so they go back to pips having seen season one when when you know several years ago as we did and then this summer or this fall i went to go visit a friend of mine uh in upstate new york and we went to this diner in the Catskills, Phoenicia Diner. And I was watching this episode and I was like, that looks just like a Phoenicia Diner.
And it is the goddamn Phoenicia Diner in the Catskills. So I have been to Pips in upstate New York and had incredible pancakes there.
And shout out the Phoenicia Diner. It's the best.
I do want to push back on Devin's categorization of, do you want to go get some shitty diner food? I've been to many diners. None of it is shitty.
All of it is beautiful in its own way. And especially not the, I mean, I don't want to speak to pips.
Maybe it's shitty if you're not in the VIP section of pips, but like I, um, as you were, well, as Mark is in season one, he's, he gets to be in the VIP

section, but like I, uh, I diner coffee can be shitty. Oh, sure.
But it's part of the charm. Not the Phoenicia diner coffee though.
That, that coffee was, it was hidden delicious. Here's the thing about me.
And this might be even more revealing about then my door selection. I drink coffee, black, no sugar, just hardcore black, unless I'm in a diner and then I order cream on the side just in case it's shitty.
Because if it's shitty, then you can just put cream in it and then everything's fine. And that's sort of how I navigate shitty diner coffee, which is, as you point out, part of the experience.
Yeah, it's what you're there for. I want the clearly frozen French fries.
I want the shitty coffee. Like I want the eggs off a grill that clearly would not pass any health code violation.
Like this is what I am participating in and eager to participate in. I should say.
I love that. Okay.
So, uh, this free commercial for, for the Phoenicia diner aside, um, uh, we already talked a little bit about this interaction between Devin and Mark inside of the diner here, but I just want to talk about Devin in general. She's doing exactly what I hoped, which is like, of all the people to hear, she's alive.
I had the most faith in Devin, certainly not in Rickon. Though, shout out

Kobelvig as a

sort of... No.

This is where we must put our foot

down. No, Kobelvig?

This show cannot make Kobelvig

a thing. It cannot do it.

Bervin, yes. Kobelvig, no.

Bervin is extra textual.

You can't create your own nicknames.

It doesn't work that way. You can because all of Reddit is already calling Milkshake Milkshake.
That's all I've seen. They just call him Mr.
Milkshake. Okay, that one actually, look, great counterpoint.
Milkshake is quite good. And I support Milkshake.
For some reason, Kovelvig, it bothered me. You just got to be the UUR, Rob, and I support you in that.
But Devin is the best. And Devin's demeanor towards Milchick is my favorite.
And also the way that she drops a towel on top of the picture of Gemma and Mark sort of very casually to conceal any further line of inquiry around that was really quick thinking, which I really liked. I do not know why she's married to Rickon.
I'll never understand it. He's a buffoon, but she's the best.
That's his charm though. Is it? I like having him on the show.
He would clearly be a terrible person to be around in actual life, but as a character on a show, I appreciate his presence. Oh yeah.
No, he's a delight to watch. I just don't want Devin married to him necessarily.
But Mr. Drummond, who you mentioned, the bearded enforcer, Lumen enforcer, is here at the diner.
She is referred to as uppity a little bit later in the episode. Devin, which just makes me worried about Devin.
So I'm going to say it right here, right now, on season two, episode two. Ben Stiller, Dan Erickson, anyone, if you're listening, if you hurt Devin, you hurt me.
What about the baby? The baby can go? The baby is fine. Devin must be protected.
Again, she only pops up in this episode in small bursts, but critical ones, as you say, to the drive and the structure of what needs to happen. Like someone outside needs to have heard what Mark had to say and be skeptical of everything that Lumen is doing.
And yeah, like her interactions with Milchik, I want to echo, are wonderful, in part because we are so conditioned from season one to see Milchick in particular as someone who's like, you cannot cross this person. Like there are real consequences on the severed floor when you act up.
And so to see literally anybody sticking up, like standing up to him, I think is a nice change of pace and something that you almost like reflexively have to check in your watching experience. But also what Mark and Devin represent to each other in that diner conversation as they're talking about Gemma, I think is just a great way to, you know, as we're swirling around our sci-fi and our quest for human emotion, two great tastes that taste great together, we're getting into this sense of what grief means to different people and Mark having the perspective of being so scaldingly close to this pain of loss of his wife that he cannot see what's happening and doesn't want to confront it and honestly can't even understand why someone like Devin would be affected by his wife's death versus Devin who has just enough distance to still hurt a lot and still want answers, but also to see the evidence that's laying out for what it is.
I love that. And we did get some information in season one about like how close all four of them were.
And, you know, there is evidence that Devin was quite close, that she's not posturing here at all. No.
I can understand Mark's, Mark feeling affronted by it, but I think Devin is quite genuine in her ownership of this part of the grief. I do want to shout out, we talked about it, but the phrase that Milchick uses, perhaps quoting Mark directly, that you were choking on her ghost is what he says about how Mark was just the undertow of grief had taken him.
I won't call her Kobelvig, but I do want to talk about Ms. Selvig before we go.
I appreciate your discretion. Two iconic, incredible moments from Oscar winner Patricia Arquette inside of this episode.
Just being a god-tier weirdo in a very weird show. It just is so wonderful.
The play of emotion on her face when Helena is sort of making the offer to her of like, you can come back and there's this pot. Like all of that sequence is really good, especially like Helena's completely disingenuous apology, her we don't fear anyone, all this sort of stuff.
Like all the Helena stuff is really good. But there's a moment inside of it.
I think it's before she offers her the bullshit role that's not on the severance floor. You don't think that's a real job? I think she would be spearheading it.
It would be new. And I think even before the apology, just the offer, before she asks for, I think she says an apology is due.
There's just this pause and a play of emotion on a Patricia Arca's face that is nine different things at once. And I mean, this is why you hire her.
She's just amazing. And then, of course, there's the primal scream at the end.
What a rip from her. The scream was great.
And to your point about the nine different things, there's nine different things like what Britt Lauer is giving us, which is schemes within schemes, levels of understanding and navigating her own wants and needs versus furthering the aims of the corporation and her family. And then there's whatever is happening within Miss Cobell, who is just like cuckoo bananas.
Like I have no bearing over what this character wants yet or no grasp of what she actually wants to the point that were I, Mark, I'm not sure I would go home that night after everything that happened to live next door to the woman who has stalked me across two separate lives and committed, among other things, Joe, at least some lactation fraud. Thank you for getting that phrase in there.
You and Devin are heroes for saying it. Something that Milchik says about Selvig Kovell is he says, quote, she will never descend to that floor again, nor bedevil you out here.
Our guys just got to flourish. The bedevil really got me.
Descend to that floor, like hell language, devil language, all that sort of stuff like that. But my question is, if that were the case, why does Lumen allow for the opportunity for Mark to have this interaction

with her? You would think that they would

escort her to that

housing. You know what I

mean? Why is she out there alone

allowed to have this interaction

with him?

The Reddit

detectives have pointed out that she drives a white

rabbit, which is just a fun

Alice in Wonderland sort of thing.

And

also, I have felt this Thank you. detectives have pointed out that she drives a white rabbit, which is just like a fun, like Alice in Wonderland, uh,

sort of thing.

Um,

and also I have felt this way since season one.

I cannot tell you why I feel like she's an actual here.

She's a hero.

She's a stealth hero that she,

I don't think she's the villain of this show.

And,

um,

I think clearly not. If it's like woman who is obsessed with some stuff versus big evil corporation courting immortal life like one of those things is more evil than the other but I feel like once we understand like what she's actually after because like she's the one who sort of goes rogue about the idea of reintegration in season one she's the one who's like testing the bounds on mark and gemma in a way that is not uh you know official and stuff like that so i don't know if like i don't know i just have this like feeling that she's like i don't know i just the way i hear some people talk about her yeah you know what a what a bitch like all sorts of stuff and i'm just like i don't think she's a she's a little a little loose in the head yeah like not you not you not you like obviously we we both agree that she's a little loose in the head she put chamomile in cookies like i'm not saying no no greater evidence you will find than that i'm not saying that every screw is tight there some of them are a bit loose but i i just just think that once we fully understand the shape of her motivation, I

feel like I'm going to be on her side.

Could be. So I'm interested to see that.

And let's zoom out for some

TV logic for a second, which is this is the

beginning of season two of a show. Patricia

Arquette is on it and I presume will

continue to be on it. Correct.
And so what

is she going to do if not work at Lumen?

And the long arc of

television, Joe, tells us that by season three or

four, the villains and the heroes have

Thank you. continued to be on it.
And so what is she going to do if not work at Lumen? And the long arc of television, Joe, tells us that by season three or four, the villains and the heroes have teamed up for some cause against a yet-to-be-undiscovered villain, some greater cause that they must combat together. A bearded baby, perhaps.
Look, we're all trying to fight against the bearded babies. All right, that's like the main sort of outline of what I wanted to go through.
Anything that we haven't covered that you want to make sure that we check in on? One more thing that I think ties into some of what you and I discussed when we were talking about Squid Game, Joe, as it relates to hidden identities, ulterior motives, and the sort of like, do you use that as a dramatic reveal or do you use it to build suspense within the show? I think in this case, Helly versus Helena. And how much more fun it is to now have the opportunity over the remainder of this season to interpret those things not as a potential big reveal, which I just don't think it's going to be, and I'm not treating it that way, and more as we get to decipher all the doublespeak and decipher the hidden meaning and the subtext of every line.
Like, I'm glad to be in this place. Even though, frankly, I think the show is kind of having it both ways at once.

I really, I really agree.

I really agree.

I think, again,

it makes me optimistic for the future of sort of

how they're going to calibrate

their mysteries and their reveals

that they have made it ambiguous enough

that people can still fight about it

on the Reddit if they want to.

Yes.

And people seem to want to.

And in our email

at pineapplebobbing at gmail.com

if you so choose.

And on Twitter and wherever else you like to fight with people.

That's all great.

Blue Sky, etc., etc.

But also, they're not really trying to hide it at the same time.

Like, both of those things are true.

And some of the other shows that we've covered recently that have been so aggravating

were when they tried to treat things that were plain as day as,

oh my god, the big reveal's coming. You don't even see it.
You can't even handle what we're about to show you. And I don't get that sense of severance at all.
I know there are a lot of mysteries and a lot of secrets. And I'm not saying every one of the reveals is going to be exactly what we are crazy about in terms of the storytelling.
But I feel confident enough based on the rollout that they know how to parcel these things and they know how to modulate our expectations and just incrementally give us a slightly bigger understanding of the world every week until we get somewhere. Another day, another stray aimed at disclaimer.
Okay. I didn't say that.
That was you. I didn't name any shows.
We're going to wrap up here with what may become a weekly bid if you guys continue to email us at pineapplebobbing at gmail.com or prestigetv at spotify.com. Matt R.
wrote in on the question of what would he sever. And his is such a good one.
Matt wrote, as for what I would sever, how about long-haul flights, daily commutes, so any form of annoying travel. You book your vacation and then all of a sudden you're in japan no customs no baggage check no waiting for a taxi no more stuck in traffic for an hour each way between the office and home just get in your car and pop you're at work and pop you're back home so like a real like uh that's the end of matt's emails like a real sort of like star trek transporter uh situation i would just like ask matt to consider we just always need to, I think, this is what the show is teaching us, consider your innie and say, is your innie's life then just sitting in planes and cars? I am saying to my innie, eat shit.
You are on an eight hour flight in an economy class seat because I don't, it's not my problem. No, it's not your leg room.

This is why I can't decide if,

say that severance were a real thing

that could happen in the real world.

Would the airline lobby lobby for it or against it?

Because on the one hand,

I could see a lot of people wanting to travel,

people who not only are uncomfortable

or don't want a long flight,

but maybe incredibly anxious flying.

And you could, you know, delegate that to your innie.

I think that'd be a relief for lots of different people. But on the other hand, no one is ever paying for business class ever again.
You know, all those sweet, sweet upcharges. They're just not happening for you, American Airlines.
I'm sorry. No one's ever going to get served a bowl of warm nuts on a flight again.
How sad. Credit card privileges revoked for the innie.
I also feel like if the airplane, the airplane uh you know lobby were to push for this they would want some sort of like um sedative sort of thing to come with the severance thing because like oh yeah we we've seen rebellious innies you don't want a pack of rebellious innies on a great point on a flight uh something like that. You want them docile as cattle.
So, you know, the severance chip and a mild sedative. And a pineapple, maybe.
That's all you need. And a champagne mango.
All right. That has been our coverage of season two, episode two of Severance.

I would like to encourage all of you to email us,

pineapplebobbing at gmail.com.

And I would like to encourage you all to continue to think about birving.

Kai, can we hear that one more time?

Just once.

Everybody's talking about birving.

Everybody's talking about birving.

I really hope this is as funny to you all

as news does because we're not

going to stop

thank you to Kai Grady

for being the best always and to Justice

Dales for his larger work

on the feed and we will see you

for the agency we will see you for

Severance we will see you for the pit

we are in it

2025 bye Severance, we will see you for the pit. We are in it.
2025. Bye.